Venture capital fund for climate research

India will get a venture capital fund to study the impact of climate change and suggest mitigation models, reports Chetan Chauhan.

India will get a venture capital fund to study the impact of climate change and suggest mitigation models. Also on the agenda is a national climate change programme, the Prime Minister's Office has said.

On Friday, the government will discuss climate change threadbare with experts at the first meeting of the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change. The council, which has members like RK Pauchari, head of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Sunita Narian of Centre for Science and Environment, was formed before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left for the G-8 meeting on climate change in Germany in the first week of June.

Environment ministry officials said a venture capital fund will be pooled from different stakeholders in the fields of agriculture, science and technology and environment.

"We will also look for contribution from the private sector that would gain from climate change mitigation methods," a ministry official said.

The fund is being created because the government feels research on climate change impact in India has been dismal. All estimates of climate change impact are based on models and lack scientific assessment, Principal Advisor in Planning Commission Surya P Sethi said recently.

Through this money the government will create a pool of scientists to do specific studies on impact of climate change in agriculture and food security, water availability, coastal regions and disaster preparedness.

"The Environment ministry and department of science and technology will select the scientists," the official said.

The PMO has also decided that by December 2007, India will have a National Climate Change Programme document enlisting what is to be done in different sectors.